Prometheus 6

FiveThirtyEight.com (discovered while seeking redeeming value from Paul Krugman) links the transcript of Larry King's interview with Rick Warren. 

KING: All right.

Well, could he have heard it in the car, though, if he was still arriving at the event?

WARREN: You know what, if -- not a chance. The Secret Service would have reported it. [P6: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!] When he showed up, there were -- and he says he didn't. You know, I...

KING: All right.

WARREN: ...I just have to accept his integrity on that.

Warren finally gives the right response at the end: "I just have to accept his integrity on that". That's all any of us really can do, I suppose.

But why, then, all this crap about the Secret Service? Why all the bluster from McCain? Why not a simple denial?

The assertion that McCain had the opportunity to cheat is undeniable; the suggestion that he actually did cheat is probably unprovable. But paradoxically, the McCain campaign have focused all their attention on addressing the former question, while not really bothering to refute the latter.

It is a dishonorable and shifty little thing to do.

But you know what? Politically speaking, it was probably wise. Two of the generally feistier Democratic surrogates that I saw on MSNBC today, Claire McCaskill and Steve McMahon, wouldn't touch the issue with a ten-foot pole, lest they be accused of being whiners. This attests to the strength of McCain's brand -- they weren't about to point out the dishonorable actions of an Honorable™ man.

Now, fundamentally, you can really only swim upstream if you know that you're going to have the wherewithal to complete the journey. It may already be too late in the election -- after months of disclaiming at every possible opportunity that they honor and respect Senator McCain's service -- for the Democrats to try and impeach certain elements of his brand. In which case, McCaskill and McMahon were right to punt on the question.

But it's worth remembering that McCain won the Republican primaries in large part because the other candidates were so deferential to him. Rudy Giuliani praised McCain incessantly during the debates of last summer, at which point McCain's campaign was in tatters and didn't seem like much of a threat. But guess where Rudy's supporters went once McCain won New Hampshire?

The Republicans, of course, have no such inhibitions when it comes to Democrats, which is why they went right at Al Gore's strengths, and right at John Kerry's strengths, and are going right at Barack Obama's strengths -- and, importantly, did so early in those respective campaigns. It's one of the big reasons that they win elections.